Residents living near Ngutunui Rd are pleading for motorists to slow down there.
Vehicles skid off a dangerous stretch of Ngutunui Rd, near Puketotara, nearly every week.
That’s according to locals who have contacted The News to plead for motorists to observe a 50 km/h speed limit along about 1.5 km of the road, just north of Ngutunui School.
The problem is worn seal, which the Ōtorohanga District Council cannot repair till the weather improves.
The short section of road is extensively sign-posted with both 50 km/h signs and more signs warning motorists to slow down.
“But motorists clearly aren’t slowing down,” says Ōtorohanga Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Neville King.
The brigade was called out after vehicles crashed on the same corner in Ngutunui Rd on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday last week. “They need to do something about it; we’ve been called there four times in the last month,” King said. Sergeant Warren Shaw, of the Te Awamutu Police, says it is quite a risky stretch of road. “Because people drive too fast there, volunteer fire brigade members are being dragged away from their homes and jobs to attend these crashes,” he said. “The seal bled through in summer. It is now so soft that – even in winter – the weight of a fire truck can make impressions in the surface. Some sections are so worn it can even be hard to stand upright in wet weather.” But Shaw said if people obeyed the 50 km/h speed limit there would probably be no issue. The only exception was wet weather, “in which case it could be necessary to drive even slower”. Five nearby residents told The News this week they feared the potential for a fatal crash if motorists kept ignoring the temporary 50km/h speed limit signs. Margaret Ormsby says she was nearly killed by an oncoming van which lost control on the slippery road in May. A van skidded to the opposite side of the road, missing her car by about a metre. She said she remained calm and assisted the other driver, whose van had come to rest on its side. But the farmer’s wife, who has lived in the area 63 years, said she was under no illusion as to the cause of the crash. “I go slow on this road but I don’t know how many others do – about a week to 10 days ago I believe there were three (similar) crashes on this road within three days.” Barry Blackford said the trouble was the lack of chip in the seal used along the dangerous section of road. “The chip has gone and the bitumen has come up. I think its terrible. We have to have vehicles suitable for the road but can we have roads suitable for our vehicles.” Karen Crake said there had been so many crashes in the last six months that drains at sides of the road were littered by fragments from vehicles which had come top grief. “We can’t stress how important it is to keep your speed down; there are plenty of signs telling you to do this here.” The road was so bad that even experienced drivers, including local farmers and tradesmen frequently under-estimated how slippery it was. Even a van belonging to a traffic control employee, who had been laying road cones, had skidded off the road. “I have a friend who thought he had slowed down sufficiently, but then he felt the back of his ute losing traction. He looked down at his speedo and realised he had been doing 67 km/h, which was still way too fast. He said to himself ‘my bad’ and slowed right down.” Allan Knighton said the situation of cars skidding off the section of road had been going on for months but had recently grown much worse due to the recent wet weather conditions. “I don’t know what they can do about it right now but people do have to adhere to the 50km/h signs if they want to stay on the road.”
